UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK
AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES PROGRAM
Dr. Melinda Chateauvert
| Office Hours: |
Office Phone:
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Tuesday 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. |
301/405-1164
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| Thursday 12:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and by appointment |
2169 Lefrak
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Overview:
What are the current issues of importance in the black community today? How do popular and alternative media present these issues? How complete or accurate are the stories we hear about affirmative action, job discrimination, police brutality, urban poverty, African geopolitics, AIDS, and recent developments in black culture? Can we rely on a single news story or news source for our information? Is the media free of racial, gender, class, or political biases? Can we, as consumers of media, judge the accuracy of stories reported in the news? How does the black press fare on these questions? How are African Americans portrayed by the media? Are African American sports stars, entertainers and/or suspected criminals highlighted more often than African American politicians, intellectuals, and commentators?
You must have regular access to the internet (worldwide web and email) to successfully complete this course.
Required Texts:
Farai Chideya, Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation about African-Americans, New York: Plume, 1995
ISBN: 0-452-27096-0 $13.00
Douglas Rushkoff, Media Virus! Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture, New York: Ballantine Books, 1994 ISBN: 0-345-39774-6 $12.95
Daily Reading Assignment: The Washington Post (that's every day including Sunday). The print edition, not the washingtonpost.com.
Additional Reading Assignments: Links to assigned articles can be found in the Course Outline. You will need Acrobat Reader and a word processing program such as MS Word to read these articles.
Warning: Several of these articles are written by scholars for scholarly journals, and may be difficult to get through. But, as Frederick Douglass said, "Without struggle there is no progress. Those who want freedom without struggle, want crops without plowing up the ground." You will benefit immensely by struggling through them. For a quick reference guide to key words and concepts see Effects Research: Glossary
Course Requirements:
We will be meeting once each week to discuss current news stories. You are welcome to bring sodas, coffee, and/or snacks (this may be more formally organized).
For each meeting, bring articles clipped from the week's newspapers and news magazines, and any written notes on radio or television news shows you have analyzed.
For the first few sessions, we will familiarize ourselves with the top news stories of the season, collect outside materials, and discuss current events. In addition, we will examine key concepts, such as "representation" "race" contruction, reflexivity, cultural imperialism, etc. (Great words to throw around the dinner table at Thanksgiving.)
Towards the end of the semester we may videotape a mock news show in the campus television studio, in which students will play act as pundits, experts, commentators, moderators, and reporters.
In addition to simply learning the issues, we will look critically at the media itself. Among the questions we will ask:
Written work will be required. Everyone will keep a scrapbook of articles and media notes on current issues with your own commentary. These will become reference books that will enable you to look at the way stories develop over time. I will ask you to turn these several times during the semester. Additional in class and/or homework assignments will include:
The email discussion list can be accessed through:
aasp298m--0101-fall00@coursemail.umd.edu
Announcements regarding class assignments, meeting rooms and upcoming events will be made via this list. All registered students are automatically subscribed to the email account listed with the Registrar. If you have another email account you would prefer to use, please let me know.
If you do not have an email account, you must get one immediately in order to participate in this course.
You may also use this list to discuss current events and class assignments.
afcGrading:
Grades are determined on the following scale: 91-100 = A; 81-90 = B; 71-80 = C; 61-70 = D; 60 and below = F. Please note the cut-off for A grades.
Notes on Grading:
Course Outline:
August 31 Basics
Week I September 7 Introduction
Chideya, Don't Believe, "Test Your Racial Issues IQ" (pp xv-xx) Take the test, then check your answers.
Chapter 1, "When Is a Fact Not the Truth?" (pp 3-12), Chapter 18, "Who's Making What News?" (pp 241-254) and familiarize yourself with data in the rest of the book. Be sure you know these keywords.
Week II September 14 Stereotypes
Week III September 21 What is Race?
Kirk Johnson, "Objective News and Other Myths: The Poisoning of Young Black Minds," Journal of Negro Education vol. 60, no. 3 (Summer 1991) Sheila T. Murphy, "The Impact of Factual v. Fictional Media Portrayals on Cultural Stereotypes," The Annals of the AAPSS Gail Coover and Linda Godbold, "The Convergence Between Racial and Political Identities," Communication Research (Dec. 1998)
Week IV September 28 Media Constructions of Reality
Stuart Hall, "What is this 'black' in black popular culture?"Social Justice, v20 n1-2 (Spring-Summer 1993) Cameron McCarthy, "Living with anxiety: race and the renarration of white identity in contemporary popular culture," Journal of Communication Inquiry, v22 n 4 (Oct 1998)
Week V October 5 Black Representatives
Film, "Representation & the Media" Mick Underwood, "Mass Media: Cultural effects: Overview and Introduction" Be sure to follow the links. Christopher Sieving, "Cop Out: The Media, Cop Killer and the Deracialization of Black Rage," Journal of Communication Inquiry 22 (Oct 1998): 4 Enid Logan, "The Wrong Race, Committing Crime, Doing Drugs, and Maladjusted for Motherhood: The Nation's Fury over "Crack Babies," Social Justice 26 (Spring 1999): 1
Week VI October 12 Media Controls
James Sterngold, "Racial Divide Widens on Network TV," The New York Times, Dec. 29, 1998, A1 Clarence Page, "TV's Racial Divide Reflects the Real World," Chicago Tribune, Dec. 30, 1998 "Hiring More Minority Journalists is only half the battle," American Journalism Review, 21 (Sept. 1999): 17 Eric Stern, "Black Students versus campus newspapers," American Journalism Review, 19 (May 1997): 4Janny Scott, "Who Gets to Tell a Black Story?" The New York Times, June 11, 2000
Week VII October 19 Controlling the Media
"Mechanisms of Management Control at the New York Times" (Adobe Acrobat required) Howard Kurtz, "Follow the Bouncing Pols," Washington Post, August 27, 2000, p. C1 Leon Mayhew, "Money, Persuasion and American Values," Media, Culture, and Society,vol 21 (1991):6 (Adobe required) Keith Negus, "Cultural Production and the Corporation, Musical genres and the tategic managment of creativity in the US recording industry," Media, Culture, and Society, vol. 20 (1998): 3 (Adobe required) FAIR, "The IMF & the World Bank Protests" read linked articles Jerry Knudson, "Rebellion in Chiapas: insurrection by Internet and Public Relations,"Media, Culture, and Society, vol 20 (1998): 3 (Adobe required) Tim Baylor, "Media Framing of Movement Protest: The case of American Indian protest," Social Science Journal 33 (July 1996): 3 Melissa Hickman Barlow, "Race and the Problem of Crime in Time and Newsweek cover stories, 1946-1995," Social Justice, 25 (Summer 1998): 2
Week VIII October 26 The Presidential Election
Rushkoff, Media Virus, Introduction, Chapters 1-3 (pp 1-99) Check out Hess's weekly update on media coverage of the Presidential race And The Nation's Election 2000 website
Week IX November 2
MIDTERM
Week X November 9
Kevin McNulty, "Adding Low-watt Stations to the FM Dial," American Journalism Review, 21 (Sept. 1999): 7
Week XI November 16
Week XII November 23 Thanksgiving/No Class
Week XIII November 30
Week XIV December 7
FINAL EXAM Monday, December 18 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Get Adobe Acrobat Reader (Required for reading certain assignments)
New York Times "How Race is Lived in America" Summer 2000
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